Lipper Leaders Key

Recent News

Shares of U.K. e-commerce retailer Asos PLC closed down 37.6% on Monday after the company guided for a sales deceleration, but Wells Fargo analysts say they remain confident the company will reach its long-term goal of £2.5B in sales and 4% margins. Asos lowered its fiscal year guidance to 15% growth from 20% to 25% growth previously, saying November fell below expectations. "The current backdrop of economic uncertainty across many of our major markets together with a weakening consumer confidence has led to the weakest growth in online clothing sales in recent years," the company said in a statement. However, Wells Fargo analysts note that competing Boohoo Group PLC "came out well this [morning] and stated that they are 'comfortably in line with market expectations' following a strong trading through Black Friday." Wells Fargo slashed Asos' price target to p3400, or £34, from p9600, or £96, previously. Analysts maintained their outperform stock rating saying they don't see any fundamental issues with the company. "We continue to believe that the company's flexible model and prudent management can weather this disappointing season," the note said. "[H]owever, with
the macro worsening in Europe, tech valuation compressing and now
company credibility low - we think this now puts Asos into the 'penalty box' for the time being." Asos shares have sunk 61% in 2018 while the Amplify Online Retail ETF has fallen 0.1% and the S&P 500 index is down 4.6% for the period.

Retail container ports have reached a new record, 2 million containers in a month, with retailers scrambling to get merchandise into the U.S. before possible tariff hikes, according to the National Retail Federation. Tariff increases were postponed for 90 days after talks between the U.S. and China during the Group of 20 meeting. "We hope that the temporary stand-down becomes permanent, but in the meantime there has been a rush to bring merchandise in before existing tariffs go up or new ones can be imposed," said NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold in a statement. "China's abuses of trade policy need to be addressed, but tariffs that drive up prices for American families and costs for U.S. businesses are not the answer." The Global Port Tracker said U.S. ports it covers handled 2.04 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in October, the last month for which numbers are available. That's up 9% from September and up 13.6% from last year. November was estimated at 2.01 million TEUs, up 14% year-over-year. Imports are forecast to fall in 2019 "as the market adjusts to higher prices to to the Trump tariffs and the impact on consumer and industry confidence going forward," said Ben Hackett, founder of Hackett Associates, which produces the Global Port Tracker for the NRF. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF is down 3% for 2018, the Amplify Online Retail ETF is up 5.8% for the period. The S&P 500 index is down 0.7%] for the year to date.

Walmart Inc. , including the namesake retailer, Sam's Club and Jet.com, will overtake Apple Inc. to take the number three spot on the ranking of the world's largest e-commerce retailers, according to eMarketer data. In 2017 Apple had 3.8% of sales share, ahead of Walmart's 3.3% of share. For 2018, Walmart is poised to claim 4.0%, swapping places with Apple, which will have 3.9% of share. The top two e-commerce retailers for 2018 will be Amazon.com Inc. with 48% and eBay Inc. with 7.2%. "Importantly, Walmart has one of the fastest growing e-commerce businesses," eMarketer wrote, with 39.4% online sales while Apple's e-commerce growth will be a little more than 18%. Walmart's third-quarter e-commerce sales grew 43%, the company announced on Thursday. Walmart shares have gained nearly 3% for the year to date, Apple stock is up 10.4%, the Amplify Online Retail ETF has rallied 7.7%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 1.5% for the period.

A quarter of all sales on Election Day (25.1%) took place on smartphones, according to data provided by Adobe, up 28.3% from smartphone sales activity last year. In total $1.48 billion was spent online, up 13.2% year-over-year. While that's in line with growth over the first few days of November, the numbers indicate that while voters waited in line to cast their votes, they did a little shopping, Adobe told MarketWatch. "Shoppers increasingly made purchases via mobile devices on Election Day, driving 51.6% of visits and 32.6% of revenue," the report said. "Smartphones led the way for mobile at 44.3% of visits and 25.1% of revenue." Adobe expects U.S. online sales to increase 14.8% to $124.1 billion for the holiday season, from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31. The Amplify Online Retail ETF has rallied 12.7% for the year to date while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF is up 7.3% for the period, and the S&P 500 index is up 4.4%.

ETF Details

Category

Science & Tech

Portfolio Style

Science & Tech

Fund Status

Open

Fund Inception

April 20, 2016

Managers

Lewellyn

Tong

Desai

Investment Policy

The Fund seeks investment results that generally correspond (before fees and expenses) to the price and yield of the EQM Online Retail Index (the Index). The Index seeks to measure the performance of global equity securities of publicly traded companies with significant revenue from the online retail business.
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